He likes his fashion shows to be experienced as a gradual shift towards another place and time. Their atmosphere is always like the endless landscape of a sandy desert. In the distance, the shape of a figure becomes more distinct: an amazon, somewhere between despair and arrogant pride, represents the realization of a dream that has constantly haunted him over the past six months of preparing his collection.

In 2002 his inspiration broke the sound barrier of fashion. Each season he overwhelms the catwalk with harnessed jackets and flawless streams of suede or cashmere. He designs for a woman in baggy trousers, smoking a cigarette in a gentlemen’s bar. At daybreak, Ackermann’s heroine will be wearing a sheath dress of silk satin, the garment ragged and held only by a single thin strap, allowing her to be undressed while toasting her last glass of champagne.

Wielding both extravagance and spiritual purity, Haider Ackermann insists on his cherished theme of East meets West. His vision is nourished by a profusion of images extracted from a childhood of being tossed back and forth between Morocco, Chad and Ethiopia; his teen years in the cold light of Anvers via Amsterdam serve as counterpoint. The memory of each place is etched into his flesh. Together, they compose a prelude to his stopover in Paris, where his brilliantly circumspect style became a reference for those who thought that the underground was finished. Indeed, rare are those who, like him, know how to make the simple compelling.

We are tempted to wonder what it was like before. His wrappings of lamb velvet, coarse and streaked like a Soulages painting, his take on classic designs purged of all dross to retain only the essential structure, and his evening gown that is at once functional like a tee-shirt yet totally sumptuous: such designs have renewed the understatement of a luxuriously insubordinate kind of elegance that has no equal other than the perfectly unique appearance of the woman who wears them.

Melvin Sokolsky is a man of images. His series "Bubbles" and "Flying," both shot for Harper's Bazaar respectively in 1963 and 1965, figure among the classics of fashion photography. In the former, a woman floats along the Seine in a bubble. In the latter, another woman flies over Montmartre. These images are emblematic of Sokolsky's work in photography: a light and playful world of enchantment. Beyond such remarkable achievements in fashion, the photographer's entire body of work is astonishing.

Melvin Sokolsky is 21 years old when he starts working in fashion in 1959 at the invitation of Henry Wolf, the visionary art director of Bazaar. Wolf had just left Esquire, and he was looking for new photographic talent to modernize Bazaar; Sokolsky was among the chosen.

Less interested in apparel, Sokolsky is especially fascinated by his models as they pose in front of the camera. He portrays this fascination on several occasions, notably by creating images-within-images inspired by "Las Meninas." Month after month he invents stories through which he explores the female form, its posture and attitudes.

Within the walls of his studio, Melvin Sokolsky releases an insatiable creative appetite. He plays with scale and perspective, increases the number of models, and constantly experiments. A woman walks on the ceiling; two others interact on top of a giant table and chair; another climbs a stairway that has no beginning or end. Sokolsky is knowledgeable about the history of images; sources of influence like the surrealist movement or metaphysical painting are sometimes quite apparent. There is a wealth of ideas, always fresh, yet there is also the process, the precision of the images, and the saturation of colors.

Alongside his sustained collaboration with Bazaar, the photographer also works for Show, McCall, Esquire, Newsweek, and New York Times Magazine. After more than a decade of professional photography, Sokolsky begins to work with motion pictures and decides to move to Los Angeles in 1975, where he engages in a parallel career as a filmmaker, mostly in advertising. At the turn of the century, Sokolsky takes up again his collaboration with Bazaar, and works for Vogue, Vibe or The New York Times. His visual poignancy remains intact; his photography, an experience both sensory and conceptual, is as luminous as ever.

The 1960s are rightfully considered to be the Golden Age of fashion photography, as well as its age of emancipation. Sokolsky, with his blazing creativity, is among the vanguard of the genre's revolutionary movement. "I acted on instinct, and all I had to offer at first was irreverence."

The ambition of this retrospective is to emphasize Melvin Sokolsky's essential contribution to the revival of photography in the 1960s, and reveal to 21st century eyes just how strikingly contemporary this photographer is.

Melvin Sokolsky lives and works in Los Angeles. He is represented in L.A. by the Fahey/Klein Gallery and in New York by the Staley+Wise Gallery and by Marek & Associates.

Salon de lecture, salle à manger, villa Noailles Winner of the Hyères Festival in 2002, Felipe Oliveira Baptista has now been invited back to the villa for an installation co-produced by the villa Noailles and the MUDAM.The work of Felipe Oliveira Baptista is often described as “architectural.” From season to season, the guiding principle of his collections is the instinctive search for new constructions and original arrangements. Starting with a solid object and often inspired by images of architecture, Felipe’s creative process goes on to deconstruct and reconfigure these images to produce a garment. For example, the “Dyno” Spring-Summer collection of 2007 is based on the theme of facets, stiff and obviously “architectural.”For the purposes of the present exhibition, Felipe has decided to reverse the usual order of his creative process by working from garment to object. He has broken apart the pattern of two designs to mold them and hang them on display. A devoted admirer of the Villa Noailles, Felipe Oliveira Baptista suggests a fresh dialogue between the villa’s architecture and the many facets of his own imagination.

Scott Schuman – better known as The Sartorialist – has emerged over the last few years as the leading photographer of the blogosphere. Since September 2005, on his blog, The Sartorialist (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/) he has recorded not exactly "street fashion", but how men and women with great style look when they venture out on the street. Schuman shoots digitally and posts his photographs on the web, where his blog is currently visited by approximately fifty thousand people a day, many of whom take the time
to comment – usually voicing support, but sometimes critiquing the most minute detail of a subject's outfit.

It is one of the most popular blogs on the web and has caused Schuman to be listed as one of TIME Magazine's top 100 design influencers. This exhibition provides the first opportunity of seeing The Sartorialist's prints in real life. While he began shooting as a self-taught photographer, The Sartorialist's images have become increasingly accomplished works of art in their own right. The photographs are artfully composed, light-infused, penetrating portraits of how fashion manifests itself in the real world as opposed to the runway - inclusive of all ethnicities, economic classes, age, and sex.

Scott Schuman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1968. He majored in fashion merchandising at Indiana University before working for companies like Valentino and Onward Kashiyama, eventually opening his own showroom for emerging designers. After 15 years in the fashion business, he started The Sartorialist to, in his words, "simply share photos of people that I saw on the streets of New York that I thought looked great. When I worked in the fashion industry, I always felt that there was a disconnection between what I was selling in the showroom and what I was seeing real people (really cool people) wearing in real life."

As The Sartorialist took off, it became more time consuming and increasingly
influential, and by 2006 it was Schuman's full-time job. Later that year he was approached by style.com (the official website of VOGUE magazine) to shoot in the fashion capitals of the world – London,Paris, Milan - at the time of their collections. Additionally, he now shoots and writes a monthly page for GQ Magazine and the Japanese Men's Ex. Wherever the work is published, however, it retains The Sartorialist's distinctive point of view – his feeling for time and place, his particular way of relating subject and background, and his ability to put his subjects at ease so that he can create a work of resonance in the short amount of time he is afforded.

For this exhibition at the villa Noailles, I wish to present a collection of sculptures that cultivate a relationship with the concept of “nature.” These sculptures all share the same method of production, simple and accessible: knitting. The slow pace of such work also gives me the opportunity to investigate the question of time: to manufacture it, to manage it, to set it, to take it and transform it as it flies. What is important for me is to “tame” time through an action that is repetitive, patient, laborious and manual. The “hand-made” and “non-technical” quality of the work is essential. I have deliberately chosen not to use a machine, thereby leaving room for chance and accident. The resulting piece and its final form are always the fruit of these accidents and uncertainty.

“Color Sticks” is composed of long rolls of knitted wool in a range of plain colors each fitted over wooden cylinders that are propped up in a line against the wall. The piece emphasizes the sharp contrast between the limp, shapeless texture of the wool and the rigidity of the vertical wooden supports.In “A Red Dress for a Tree,” a tree is covered in finery, a red dress that spreads out around the trunk. Each branch is wrapped in a wool sheath, like a second bark. This protective coating underscores the original shape of the tree. Placed just beside the tree, “Red Boots” is a pair of knitted, stiffened boots made of red mohair. Through the physical proximity of these two pieces I want to create a dream-like mental environment. The pair is enhanced by a soundtrack entitled “Red Protéodie,” which further immerges the spectator in this imaginary landscape.“Daisy” is inspired by a handicraft that was popular during th 1970s, which consisted of making wool flowers to decorate fabrics, clothing, pillows, curtains, etc. The piece is a deliberate reference to the “Flower Power” slogan. Scaled to huge proportions, the flowers revitalize this symbol of non-violence as well as the economic and social utopia advocated by hippie culture.Finally, “Perpetual Green” is a sculpture that resembles a plant composition. Wool-covered logs set on pedestals create a formal analogy and mimetic relationship with nature.

Dutch, born in 1978, Popel Coumou lives in Amsterdam. She is a graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In 2005 she exhibited at the Fotografiemuseum of Amsterdam (FOAM) and at the Mauritz van de Laar Gallery in The Hague. Her work has also been shown at the Amsterdam Center for Photography. In 2007, Popel Coumou was awarded the Hyères Festival’s Grand Prize for photography, a prize she shared in a tie with Jessica Roberts.Popel Coumou builds. She cuts bits of colored paper and photographic prints, she models clay, sometimes projecting a few evanescent figures before finally taking a picture of her composition. During last year’s festival, her geometric spaces constructed of large areas of color and simple volumes emitted a special resonance within the walls of the villa Noailles. During the 2008 edition of the Festival, it is only natural that the commission on the town (previously assigned to the likes of Stefan Ruiz, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Charles Fréger or Jaap Scheeren) now becomes the commission on the vvilla. The labyrinthine architecture of Mallet Stevens is offered to the artist’s imagination; can the genius of the place be tamed?

Chambre d'ami, villa NoaillesSpotted during the 21st Hyères Festival, Éric Lebon is back in the Var region, this time for an installation in one of the villa Noailles guest rooms. Clothes are everywhere, scattered on the bed, hanging in the closet or tumbling out of a travel bag along with a clutch of train tickets. Sneaking into a hotel room like an intruder, the visitor is plunged into the privacy of a guest who is none other than the ideal man whom Éric Lebon would like to dress.A self-taught fashion designer who grew up between the Carribean and continental France, Éric Lebon takes a fresh, relaxed look at a man’s wardrobe.“I decided to do fashion because I just couldn’t find anything I liked. There wasn’t much available for young men besides H&M, and in designer collections everything seemed exceedingly serious to my taste. I listen to hip-hop and you can feel it in what I do. My designs have a street side, but I use luxury materials and there’s a degree of sophistication.”Éric Lebon is committed to renewing the fashion codes of sportswear by combining gym hoods with dress shirts and designing micro shorts with a cut that’s more sexy than sporty. Energetic in form yet delicate in color, Éric Lebon’s original style is well worth discovering in his installation at the villa Noailles. The room is covered in wallpaper, a sort of giant collage of men’s faces—teens’ as well as adults’—which summarizes Lebon’s ambition: “to dress just about everybody, because I don’t care about age or social class. I just like people who beam with energy.”

Born in 1982, Jessica Roberts currently lives in Philadelphia. She holds a degree from the Tyler School of Art, from where she graduated in 2005. Two years later, her work was exhibited at the Hyères Festival, where she was awarded the Grand Prize for photography. Her overtly aesthetic approach conveys a deliberate pictorial stance that is both sophisticated and endearing.

Jessica Roberts has now been commissioned a fashion piece. The photographer returns to Hyères, and within the intimate theatre of her camera she portrays the garments of the fashion designers who have been selected to compete in this year’s festival.

YOU WEAR IT WELL is a unique traveling presentation of short films and videos from around the world regarding on fashion, style and beauty, and it is returning to Hyères with a brand new selection.
Curated by Diane Pernet and Dino Dinco, YOU WEAR IT WELL seeks to unveil the best moving images from international filmmakers, artists, photographers and designers who investigate the intersection of fashion and film.
Launched in August of 2006, YOU WEAR IT WELL is the only curated, annual film presentation of its kind and is now in its 2nd year. And for the second year, YOU WEAR IT WELL is coming to the villa Noailles.
Out of the 200 submissions, only 30 films were selected by a jury comprised of Photography Curator and Documentary Film Producer Deborah Irmas, LACMA’s new Curator of Photography Charlotte Cotton,Executive Producer of HKM and Rockfight Ned Brown, Dino Dinco and Diane Pernet. Criteria for the films included a running time of 30 seconds to five minutes and a centralized theme around fashion, style, and/or beauty that expresses a unique thought which contributes to the artistry behind the fashion and film industries.
From the breezy beaches of Brazil in Osklen "Verao 07" to the calculated art direction of Dutch artist Erwin Olaf "Le Dernier Cri", viewers are to expect an insider look into the bright minds of fashion. Londoners Gareth Pugh and Nick Knight of SHOWstudio have a Fash Off: Make-Up-a-Thon while les super-chic Marlon & Marlene ripple through the YOU WEAR IT WELL presentation with five smart little films. Icon Dita Von Teese is filmed by Ali Mahdavi and Suzanne von Aichinger in their film, "Dita", and Diane Pernet and Alexandre Czetwertynski documented Eley Kishimoto. And, never to be forgotten, is Spaniard Antonio de la Rosa "LOveREAL".
More information on YOU WEAR IT WELL 2 can be found at youwearitwell.tv and ashadedview.com.

In August 2006 I was visiting Stockholm when a friend took me to the atelier of Swedish designer, Sandra Backlund. Sandra works her magic with knits; every piece is manipulated and sculpted by hand. Sandra has no interest in trends and is motivated by her own desire for self-expression and experimentation. For Sandra fashion is simply a form of democratic art that all can appreciate. Sandra obtained her diploma from the Beckman’s College in Stockholm in 2004.

Last Spring Christian Lacroix presided over the jury that awarded Sandra the grand prize at the 22nd Edition of the festival d’Hyeres. Since winning that prize Sandra has appeared in countless prestigious international magazines and was chosen by Italian Vogue’s Franca Sozzani for the protégé project in Florence. Finally after the validation of the festival d’Hyeres, her own country awarded her the Swedish Elle best designer award.

The Rorschach test inspired Sandra’s winning ‘ink blot’ collection, she claims that the total lack of fashion culture in Sweden has pushed her to go deeper within herself for her inspiration. Sandra never sleeps and currently is filtering through the myriad of fashion proposals. The festival d’Hyeres provided this Swedish beauty with the foundation needed to create her own empire.

After Julien Dossena in 2007, it was Peter Bertsch’s turn to perform a style exercise for the 1.2.3 brand. Born in 1979 in Germany, Peter cut his teeth at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp. Having tried his hand at menswear, he started exploring and imagining women’s wear in a dreamy, surrealist style.

An imaginative and inquisitive jack of all trades, he founded the fashion magazine +One, born of collaboration between 17 neophyte designers as well as design heavyweights such as Dries Van Noten and Martin Margiela. He delves deep for inspiration from endless, eclectic sources: the work of an artist, his twist on the zeitgeist, or far far away in time or place. In 2007, his work combining synthetic and natural fabrics resulted in a collection for “Bionic” young girls in plastic flowers. His outfits resplendent with vinyl orchids have earned him many awards, including the 1.2.3 Jury award at the Hyères 2007 Festival.

Floaty curves give way to structured lines. Peter decided to explore new horizons. Heavily influenced by the architecture of the villa Noailles, where the Hyères Festival originated, and cut-and-paste work by Popel Coumou, the award-winning photographer at the Festival in 2007, who put together the press pack for Peter’s 1.2.3 collection, Peter has come up with a truly striking collection, playing on all kinds of contrasts. The garments feature origami-style pleats, to be glimpsed in full only in full swing. An interplay of light, volumes and fabrics reveals his experiments with lines, which lend a sense of structure and harmony in a single stroke.

A regal top with butterfly sleeves, espadrilles with wedges, satiny all-in-one shorts, iridescent “wedding” dress, or straight(-faced) safari jacket, collection is both multi-faceted and singular. A wardrobe celebrating the combination of contrasts, the melting pot, a balance between urbanism and nature. Using flowers, faeries, muses and messengers for our time, Peter designs silhouettes for feisty, flighty and fickle women. Everything and its opposite.

Popel Coumou and Peter Bertsch: where two worlds meet

An award-winner at the Hyères Festival in 2007, Popel Coumou studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Her collaboration with Peter is this 29-year-old Dutch girl’s first incursion into fashion photography. She’s no beginner though, having already exhibited her work on light and volume in many galleries throughout the Netherlands. Alchemist’s alloys of photographs, collages, origami and chiaroscuro: this camera conjuror brings volume to a two-dimensional world. Her artistic approach is at once personal, avant-garde and experimental, which is what attracted Peter.

More than a mere collaboration, this is a true meeting of artistic minds and worlds.

What is more inspiring; to know it all or wonder what is hidden under the surface? If you heard a story about a young, handsome and quite marvellous man, who after a sudden fall from the top of the stairs ended up dead and was discovered to wear a mask, what would you think?
Under the mask his real, old face was revealed, covered with awfulblisters. The ladies didn’t know how to react. His death deprived them a love of their life, but also saved them from being foolish with anold man. They asked themselves why he had worn the mask but couldn’t
find the answer.

In the concept magazine of Livraison, this story was the beginning of an issue about hidden faces and secrets. What do we have to hide and how do we hide it? Or is the mask a way to show the world how we see ourselves?

In collaboration with villa Noailles, Livraison selected the best ones to show in the city of Hyeres. A mix of ugly, horrifying, beautiful and weird masks. Who do you see behind it?

Drawing inspiration from the films THX1138, Rollerball, and Logan's Run.
This film combines aspects of the classic Milton Bradley game ‘Twister’ and speed chess. Promising to be an unusual and iconic shoot that will become a part of fashion history.

The set is stark white and minimal, accented by muted, colored lights.
Each player enters the stadium wearing the uniquely powerful designs of featured designer Sandra Backlund.

Future Twister on an 8’ steel rotating disc.
Two women battle in a coliseum of the future before a crowd of animatronic objects in the shape of human forms, yet obviously not living.

Each time someone falls or wins a match, the silhouetted Giacometti-like crowd will pop up, and the sound of a recorded crowd cheering will play. Smoothly. Sedately.
“oooooooh”
“aaaaaaaah”

And when a player goes down, the Moogs come out.

The object of the game is to conquer and win, but the question is for who?